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For centuries women have used cloth as a tool of comfort and as an expression of beauty within their homes. Creating cloth for warmth, cloth for shelter, our female predecessors embellished these linens with hand stitch using laborious and time consuming techniques thereby enhancing the functional beauty of objects which enveloped and protected their families. Inspired by these women I hope my creations pay tribute to and recognise the devotion expressed in cloth by our female ancestors .

''the use of traditional often time consuming process alludes to the devotion of a mother''. c K. A. Ruane 2007

Friday, January 13, 2012

colour matching...

You know how sometimes you just want to curl up with a good book? Well I felt like that yesterday, only I didn't curl up with a conventional book...I curled up with tiny sketchbooks of which I have many. For someone who doesn't consider herself an artist where pencil and paint are concerned I can tell you I have a lot of sketchbooks! Most of them are blank, nothing to be seen except blank pages. Some of them are crammed, (very few of them and usually the ones I was forced to do for my studies) and some of them have maybe five or six pages of work in them and that's it. I buy them, I constantly buy them...one day I say to myself I will draw. I have a burning desire to be an illustrator...probably never going to happen but I would consider that to be my ''dream'' and it's good to have dreams even if they will never become reality. So today I am sharing a sparse sketchbook with you, not many decorated pages but kind of 'cute' I think. I hope you like it.....

I am excited for the weekend.....this little book has me invigorated. We had a couple of latecomers to the class yesterday and that's amazing...no deadlines in Karen's Global Embroidery School, no pressure, so if you want to join us then the more the merrier.

14 comments:

enjoyed your sketchbook video. i love to sketch even though i'm not that good at it. i just bought some 'inktense' pencils that i want to play with. you use the pencil and then brush over it with water to make it look like a watercolor. color study looks like a good way for me to start so thanks for the inspiration.

love it, love it, love it. I think collecting journals is much like collecting fabric; we always have more than we use. And like you, I have several that are either empty or have only a few pages filled.

Deanna, you will love the inktense pencils; and I just purchased their color blocks and am experimenting with applying them to fabric. It works wonderfully.

I have some photos of my journals on my website that seem to have sparked some interest.

I've been toying with the idea of doing some color studies. Once again you have spurred on my imagination and creativity.

I already bought a set of Daniel Smith (quite an investment) watercolor thinking of doing botanical illustration.

I got a bit stuck because I have been out of a job since last March and I had no other income for extras. I am still waiting for a big potential customer who will buy my baby quilts to sell at her shop since no job opportunities yet.

I have been very fortunate to have a friend in the States to purchase some quality brushes and I got a great book at such a cheap price (even though the shipping killed me) from eBay.

This post will be hopefully be a springboard for me to work on the materials I have (school art block I have in stock) to restart the painting inspiration.

Your colour study notebook is gorgeous Karen. I love how your mind works! I hope you get some time to doodle in it over the weekend. What a treasure.I have lots of journals floating about too, only two or three actually full...finished!!! I love to pick them and be reminded of thoughts I had had (and mostly never gone further with). They really are little books of inspiration arent they?You have a happy and creative weekend too.

happy belated new year! I love nosing in other people's sketch books and I love that you explained all your colour work. I am most impressed that you were willing to cut up a postcard and am now looking at my postcard collection thinking 'can I?' As you can see I haven't managed to join your class this month even though I do want to. When you say no deadlines does that mean February is okay??

Love your sketch book, gorgeous colours.Like you I have a dream to draw well and back in April I started to do a sketch a day, some only 5 mins others up to an hour plus, it's been a great journey, some really naff ones, but others quite acceptable, so keep your dream alive :-)

Sketchbooks/journals have been very hard for me to do anything with. I've had it ingrained in me since I was a child that books are precious and NOT to be defaced - it's hard to overcome that and actually feel free to actually do anything in them. I have finally filled one up and am mustering my courage to 'deface' another!